November 7, 2008, Friday

The whiz of bullets overhead had barely died down when the boys of Bunia went to the movies. Dozens of little boys, teenage boys and bored young men packed into a dark sweaty room, sat on its window ledges and stood in its narrow doorway, all to...

Anyone who has already succumbed to computer-borne paranoia in this year of Y2K foreboding had better brace for another jolt to the ganglia in the form of ''Universal Soldier: The Return.'' This is the hyperkinetic action movie that posits the...

August 21, 1999, Saturday

It may be a first: a $35 million movie that goes straight to video without a theater run. Movies on that route usually don't cost a fortieth of that price. They also usually don't involve a name star and a big-time producer. But this is a peculiar...

January 8, 1999, Friday

Was a film ever more appropriately titled than ''Knock Off?'' This latest Jean Claude Van Damme vehicle, which ostensibly takes its name from the cheap imitations of brand-name clothing and other goods manufactured in Hong Kong, is actually one...

September 5, 1998, Saturday

Though it's enough of a stunt to pack Jean-Claude Van Damme, Dennis Rodman and Mickey Rourke into the same movie, ''Double Team'' doesn't stop at that. It has these three meet violently in Rome for a showdown in the Colosseum involving land mines, a...

April 4, 1997, Friday

On the theory that two of anything must be twice as good, the martial arts star Jean-Claude Van Damme has been drawing lately on remembrance of thunks past. This year, in ''Quest,'' he revisited the showy tournament format that provided the...